"Talk about what?" Sang asked as she examined her own self. She was Elfara the Bowqueen. She had opted to stick with the ranger class.
"The fact that you had some kind of panic attack back at the shop?" Van reminded her as he finished putting in his new settings. Those brothers really knew how to fake credentials. Since they were certified technicians, they had a method of smuggling the data into an existing pod in order to confuse the game into running a new account. Draco wouldn't have a clue who Van and his teammates were.
"I told you, I panicked because I thought she actually shot him," Sang said. "O'Hara is crazy enough to do it."
"Not nearly as crazy as Neil," Van said. He saw her eyes widen for a moment at the other agent's name. "What happened, Sang?"
"Nothing," Sang replied as she abruptly turned away from him.
"Is… is Neil dead or something? You and O'Hara have been in a weird funk, a gunshot traumatizes you enough to take you out for a few minutes, and Neil declined an invitation to rough up nerds, which is his favorite activity in all the world? I'm not stupid, Sang. Not nearly as stupid as you think."
"There… was an attack," Sang said. 'You had passed out from exhaustion."
"I knew it," Van said as he slammed his fist against the mirror. Much to his surprise, the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces. He had forgotten how strong his new character was. "What happened?"
"Some crazy guy from Draco was working as one of the military police. He shot Neil and then killed himself in front of me," Sang whispered.
"That's… insane," Van gasped. "And Neil?"
"He's in critical condition. They have no idea if he's going to pull through or not."
"Why shoot himself?" Van wondered aloud. "That doesn't make any sense."
"He told me something before he died; he said, 'our numbers are like the grains in the sand,'" she said. "They're literally just messing with us at this point."
"And you didn't tell me about this why? Because you were worried it might upset me? Distract me?"
"Yes!" Sang said. "I was worried that you'd flip out. You were already on the edge due to your exhaustion. What was I supposed to do? Gently tell you that a psychopath shot himself in front of me? That we could have been murdered in the blink of an eye?"
Van shook his head. "I have a right to know these things. Not that it makes any difference."
"I'm sorry," Sang said. "I was just trying to prevent you from losing your mind."
"I'm pretty sure I lost it a while ago," Van replied. "What with all of the stress and constant terror of seeing the world go up in flames, Neil getting shot sucks, and it really hurts that you had to hold this back from me, but… do we have time to even worry about this? To resolve any of it? Sang, I don't have time to process all of this crap. Let's get the team together and get ready for the tournament."
"Are you angry with me?" Sang asked.
"I don't know anymore, Sang," Van said. "I get that you wanted to protect me, I do. I just don't like being treated like I'm a kid."
Sang turned to look at him, watching him take her in. Her new character was vastly different from the last one. This woman was six feet tall and had silvery hair. A scar ran across her face and a tribal tattoo was wrapped around her neck.
Despite the foreignness of the character, though, Van could see Sang's sorrow in her eyes.
"I made a judgement call. Not because I value you less, but because I know you're important," Sang said. "I don't make snap decisions, Van. That was a calculated choice, and it was the right one."
"Right, because you'll do whatever it takes to accomplish this mission," Van shot at her. The same old argument, about morality in wartime, was starting to surface again. This was just another layer of their differing philosophies.
Sang opened her mouth for a moment, and Van was ready for half a dozen insults to be hurled at him, but she merely shook her head. "I thought we agreed to stop arguing about these things. They don't go anywhere."
"Yeah, yeah," Van said. "Come on, then. Let's rally up the crew."
They walked out into the courtyard where the rest of the Iron Dragon leaders were located. Sahara, Kylian, and Fredlin were all in their new bodies. Sahara was a large, hulking warrior wielding two battle axes, Kylian was a short warrior with bright pink hair, and Fredlin's character was a wizened looking wizard with a stereotypically long white beard.
"Everyone happy with their characters?" Van asked.
"Happy as a clam,” Fredlin said. "I've always wondered what it would be like to play a high level wizard. Now, what's the plan?"
"We're going to have to journey to the Great Plains of Eternal Summer," Fredlin said as he took out a map. "It's less than two days to get there. That will give us plenty of time to scout the place out and make friends. No doubt there are going to be a lot of players."
"I'd wager to guess that the entire game's population is going to be there," Kylian said. "Win a tournament and become a pro? That's the best deal in the world, if you ask me."
"True," Van said. "Alright, so seriously, let's get moving."
As the team started to prepare for their journey – gathering horses, filling supply bags, and gathering weapons – a young woman came running into the courtyard as fast as she could.
"Sir! Sir!" she shouted as she bolted towards Van. Fredlin growled and drew his staff, but Van held up his hand; he recognized the girl as one of the team's messengers.
"What is it?" Van asked.
The yellow-haired runner slid to a halt in front of him and took a moment to catch her breath. "Sir," she wheezed, "I've just gotten word from another messenger. The tournament's been moved up."
"What?" Van shouted as the rest of the team crowded around the girl. Everyone looked shocked at the news.
"It's tomorrow," said the messenger, whose name was Cassandra. "Draco apparently randomly moved the date up."
"No doubt to foil our big plans," Sang said. "Crap. This changes everything."
"How are we going to get there that quickly?" Van asked. "It's way too far off. And if we don't make it to the tournament in time, they're not going to let us in."
"We should fly!" Sahara said. "Jet is big enough to carry us there!"
"Yeah, that would do well for our attempts to go incognito," Kylian said. "Let's all just swoop down on a dragon that's a known ally of the Iron Dragons."
"Well, do you have any other ideas?" Sahara asked.
"Can we teleport?" Van asked as he opened his inventory to check for a Stone of Teleportation. This was purely reflexive, of course. He barely had anything in his inventory. All of these new characters were equipped with enough gold to go on a shopping spree, but there wasn't enough time for them to collect items and get to the tournament.
"No one has anything," Fredlin said, "and I don't have any teleportation spells."
"It'll take two days of hustling to get there," Sang said as she pointed to a large map display that she had brought up on her HUD. "There's no shortcuts, as we've got to get through that huge swamp there." She pointed at the large mass on the screen that was full of green. "It covers the whole region."
"Ergh, swamps?" Van repeated. "There's gonna be all sorts of things to trip us up if we move through it."
"Clock is ticking," Fredlin warned. "Whatever we do, we gotta get moving now if we're going to make it."
Van sighed heavily. "Sang, can you hack us out something to speed us up?"